SUPERCELL HAPPY WITH THEIR BOOM BEACH LAUNCH

Finland's leading newspaper Helsingin Sanomat ran an article about Supercell where they interviewed the company CEO Ilkka Paananen. Ilkka was very upbeat about the preliminary success of the Boom Beach game and sales figures also support this claim as Boom Beach has been reaching TOP10 sales listings on many markets.

It seriously looks like Supercell is becoming a three legged horse, which would make it a strong candidate for future games. Focusing on quality instead of titles let's them have far more accurate hands on management style with their games, just check the latest update with Clash of Clans - CLAN WARS ARRIVED - now that is something that keeps on squeezing juice out of gamers.

PUBLIC OR PRIVATE OWNERSHIP WHICH ONE BRINGS BETTER RESULTS FOR A GAME COMPANY?

This is actually very simple question, because the answer is obvious and a fact that can't be disputed. Privately owned companies are doing better when you take the long approach and follow them through decades. The reason for this is that they can focus on improving their business without the constant pressure of stock owners who only care about money. Private companies also care about their surroundings and make better propellants of good in society and community where they operate. This in turn means that they get better goodwill and therefore better workers. It might not be true what comes to CEO as private companies tend to pay less than public companies. But CEO is not really all that important instead they are more often than not the catalyst of destruction in a company they lead.

WHAT THIS HAS TO DO WITH GAME COMPANIES?

Well, right now there is very interesting pair of mobile game companies fighting for the crown of highest crossing game of App Store and Google Play. Supercell is doing it with their Hay Day and Clash of Clans and King Digital with their Candy Crush Saga.

SO WHICH ONE IS PRIVATE AND WHICH IS PUBLIC?

Japanese Softbank bough majority of Supercell and can be considered private company because Softbank has amazing take on long term operations and doesn't care much about quarterly success. King Digital is taking different road and running for IPO. Lots of regulatory stuff in the works for King and playful conditions for Supercell. What do you think, which is nicer?

WHERE THE PROFITS GO?

Supercell says they are happy to pay taxes and amazingly enough they DO PAY out massive cut of their earnings as taxes. What comes to King I am not sure - and I'm just speculating here - but since their headquarters is in Ireland, a country know for ample opportunities for tax planning (avoiding taxes at any cost), I believe that King Digital will not turn out to be a model member of society. Instead the money that company earns goes to people who already have quite a bit of money - now where's the good in that?

People who look at the world solely through the dollar binoculars quickly move on if they get more money from somewhere else. There is next to nothing in terms of long-term relationship building or any feeling of gratitude. On the other side of the coin - Supercell side that is - we have lots of support and projects designed to involve company's local communities. To me it looks like workers in Supercell just might code that extra mile.

BEGINNERS OPPORTUNISTIC CLASH OF CLANS STRATEGY FOR PICKING GEMS EARLY IN THE GAME

Ok, let's keep this short and sweet. The biggest bottle neck in Clash of Clans is the number of builder's huts. If you can't build or upgrade you are dead in the water so the goal in the game is to have as many huts as possible. You can buy two right off the bat but it gets more and more difficult as you need to pay them with gems.

You can get gems from tidying up the neighborhood and completing achievements. Unfortunately it is all very low key and time consuming except one item and that is Sweet Victory! achievement. Even as a new player this achievement is fairly easy to accomplish. You just need some archers and money to pick up just the good fights.

Quite a few players build their base so that their town hall is completely out in the open and by taking that one building down you win the fight. So basically drop couple of archers to a right position and wait your way into victory. Repeat until you get 1250 trophies. Afterwards you'll get hammered, but so what now you have three huts and can develop your setting much faster. Here are some examples and if you find your base among the lot, please let me know and I have a special thank you package for you...

Notice how gold keeps on going up while elixir fluctuates. Reasoning behind this is obvious, I don't use any gold and raids always give some gold while I occasionally spend quite a lot of elixir to build new troops to destroy the ones lost in previous raid.

Oh, one more thing, I didn't win them all, sometimes there are dragons lurking in the clan fortress...

ADDICTIVE CLASH OF CLANS: WHY WE PLAY IT?

CLASH OF CLANS LOOKS CUTE

Yet is is a game of war... In my previous piece on MEGAPOLIS (just looks more mega when bolded and on caps) I listed friendliness as one of the gateways into player interest retention. Those first few minutes are pretty important when using hand held gear be it a smart phone or a fleshlight. If it is smooth, soft and rounded there is big chances of being a cross-over game ranging from young to old and from gamers to squares. Clash of Clans doesn't fall short in cuteness instead it is all over the board starting from the loading screen.

This is how it starts an onslaught of friendly yet determined
looking creatures flooding from your screen.

SIMPLICITY SUITS FOR SHORT BURSTS OF PLAYING

Smart phones are especially nice for ruining our eyes with those small ass screens. It has to be a super narc game to keep people playing. Clash of Clans revolves around long term base building and short term battle sequences. What a wonderful game for the masses. Most of the time you can stay idle and when you come back to visit your home village there is always something little to do, maybe upgrade that piece of wall or cut down some trees and yes, rearm traps and fix damages done by evil attacker...

Lovely creatures minding their own business.

IT COMES IN SLOW AND FAST MOTION

Game tempo is very slow on the village side of the game and you don't get lots of action. However the tempo picks up when you jump to the battle side of the game. This dynamics will keep on attracting wide mix of players. Some will enjoy the farming side of the game and some will be attracted to the blood and mayhem. Too bad they don't have real clan warfare implemented yet.

What a serene view, suddenly there is a crack in the sky
 and the enemy village is in sights. Let's see what
kind of and adversary we'll be served this time. 

DO THE WAR CHAP

Then it is time to do WAR (yeah, this also looks more commanding this way). You choose single player campaign or multiplayer free for all. Once again nice set up for different types of players. I believe that quite a chunk of gamers will quit the game soon after they have played through the single player campaign. On the other hand majority will dive in and enjoy battling against other players.

A battle coming to an end. I the attacker have not been
successful in totally demolishing the resistance.
The victory is mine though as I have
inflicted over 50% damage
to the village.

TACTICAL FIGHTING

The most fantastic part of the fighting is that player doesn't have complete control over the troops. One can choose the place outside enemy village as well as the type of troops and the sequence together with number of troops. After that the attack takes its own path and all hell breaks loose. Defending village does the same just according those diabolical defense lines, which defender in turn has developed.

So I won but at what cost. Very little loot and lots of
expenditure on troops. This was a bad attack in the end.
Next time I'll do better so... one more game and then I'll stop.

REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT

Simple formula but so narc that you go and play some more and then some more. As your village slugs on and produces some raw materials it is easy to take few days breaks from the game and then swing on like nothing happened. I believe Clash of Clans is being played by occasional gamers and heavy users.